CREATI NG
ANOTH ER
S E LF
VOICE IN MODERN AMERICAN
PERSONAL POETRY
second edition
SAMUEL MAIO
Truman State University Press
prelimsMaio.fm Page iv Tuesday, July 5, 2005 12:43 PM
Copyright © 2005 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri 63501
All rights reserved.
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Cover design: Teresa Wheeler
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Second Edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Maio, Samuel, 1955–
Creating another self : voice in modern American personal poetry / Samuel Maio.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN–13: 978-1-931112-50-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN–10: 1-931112-50-9
1. American poetry—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Self in literature. 3. American poetry—21st century—History and criticism. 4. Persona (Literature). 5. Voice in
literature. I. Title.
PS310.S34M35 2005
811'.509353—dc22
2005011592
No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means
without written permission from the publisher.
∞ The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
2005_Maio_creating.book Page v Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:54 AM
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
ONE The Poet’s Voice as Persona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
TWO The Confessional Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Robert Lowell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
James Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Anne Sexton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
THREE The Persona Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
John Berryman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Weldon Kees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Galway Kinnell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
FOUR The Self-Effacing Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Mark Strand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Charles Simic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
David Ignatow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
FIVE Deep Image and the Aesthetics of Self: Robert Bly’s
Early Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
SIX Personal Poetry in the Twenty-first Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Bruce Weigl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Garrett Hongo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Ray González . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Martín Espada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Dionisio D. Martínez. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Joy Harjo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
2005_Maio_creatingTOC.fm Page vi Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:42 PM
vi
CONTENTS
Yusef Komunyakaa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Felix Stefanile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Lawrence Ferlinghetti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Jim Barnes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Frank Graziano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Works Cited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
2005_Maio_creating.book Page ix Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:54 AM
PREFACE
Creating Another Self examines the aesthetics of modern American personal poetry, this second edition expanding on the first with the addition
of analyses of eight new poets: Robert Bly, whose highly imagistic personal poetry is shown to extend beyond individual concerns to communal ones, and seven mostly recent poets who have employed the personal
voice in ways unintended and perhaps unforeseen by their immediate
aesthetic forebears.
The poetry occupying the attention of this volume takes as its principal subject matter an exploration of the self—seemingly the poet’s
own, but chapter 1 argues for distinguishing between the poet and the
speaker of a poem. Such poetry utilizes structurally and thematically the
metaphysical motif of self-inquiry leading to self-definition, self-investigation leading to self-discovery. In the concluding sentences of the first
edition, written ten years ago, I reflected that the production of personal
poetry appeared to be “significantly waning,” as indeed it had been since
the 1980s, the passing of James Wright and the simultaneous emergence
of schools antithetical to personal poetry (such as LANGUAGE poetry
and the New Formalism) apparently signaling the end of its popular
practice. But reports of its death were greatly exaggerated, as demonstrated by the formidable personal poets treated in chapter 6.
Elizabeth Bishop once complained in a letter to a friend that Robert
Lowell had, at the same time, opened and closed the book on meaningful
“confessional” poetry (a use of the term I roundly dispute in chapters 1
and 2) merely by virtue of his being landed gentry, a Lowell whose personal history was at once private and public, his famous ancestors’ experiences inseparable from those of our nation’s own. In essence, Bishop
had declared the demise of personal poetry just as it began in the modern era; only Lowell, she suggested, could make it other than narcissistic
2005_Maio_creating.book Page x Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:54 AM
x
PREFACE
exercises, perhaps interesting because novel (and sometimes salacious),
but finally only pointing back to itself and its primary audience of one.
Even as the novelty had grown tiresome due to excessive and continuous use, and the concept of personal poetry had seemed to exhaust
itself by such means of self-absorption prophesied by Bishop, a diverse
group of poets embraced its aesthetics to speak for and of a much larger
community far exceeding the private limits of individual consciousness,
and thereby invigorating the global aspirations for personal poetry. Bly
used personal poetry in his early work to explore ways to reach our collective unconscious (in the Jungian sense) through the use of archetypal
and cultural images, regarding the poet as “a relative of the shaman,”
healing the psychic and emotional wounds of members of the tribe. In a
similar vein, most of the poets treated in chapter 6 feel a principal obligation not exclusively to the self but to the specific ethnic tribe from
which they descend. Less expressive of identity politics and self-assertion
than bardic, these poets speak inclusively and representationally. Yusef
Komunyakaa, for example, uses the personal voice to speak from his
vantage point as an African American, yet this voice speaks on behalf of
all his fellow soldiers in the Vietnam War.
This study, however, is concerned with method and technique of
voice not with poets per se. That is, the poets discussed throughout the
book were chosen because of their representative use of the aesthetics of
personal poetry, assuredly not on the basis of their fame or ethnic heritage or gender. Nor should my selection of poets be construed as any
assessment of their being the best our nation has offered since World
War II—even though I think a number of them rightfully can be so
counted, most notably Robert Lowell and John Berryman. But “cultural
prophecy,” as the inestimable Harold Bloom observed before presenting
a list of potentially enduring poets to conclude his divine The Western
Canon, “is always a mug’s game.” So let us not venture there, but now
turn instead to that which constitutes the aesthetic properties of voice in
modern American personal poetry.
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 365 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
A
absurdity, 202–3, 210, 212–13, 243–44,
307, 332, 352–53
Adams, Henry, 53
aesthetic(s), ix–x, 1, 3, 6, 8, 15, 29, 48,
112, 229, 252, 272, 277
Alarcón, Francisco, work, “In a
Neighborhood in Los Angeles,”
291–92
allusion, 9, 37, 276
Alvarez, A.
comments by, on Berryman, 117–18
interview of, Lowell, 279
American poetry, 9, 14–15, 17–18, 21,
23, 239, 276, 294, 354
archetypes, 338, 354
Ashbery, John, 28, 238–39, 275–76
Auden, W. H., 1, 7, 9–12, 14, 21–22
works: “Musée des Beaux Arts,” 280;
“On the Circuit,” 277
B
Bacchilega, Cristina, interview of,
Strand, 276–77
Baker, Deborah, comments by, on Bly,
274, 339–41
Barnes, Jim
and Berryman, 326–28, 330
and confessional mode, 317–18
and Native American: ancestry
(Choctaw), 317, 323; tradition,
319, 325
and persona mode, 330
works: “After the Great Plains,” 326;
“Bombardier,” 320; “The Cabin on
Nanny Ridge,” 324–25; “Elegies to
John Berryman,” 327–28; “Gill
Netting the Beaver Pond,” 318–20;
“The Heavener Runes,” 319–20;
“Icons,” 320; “In Another Country:
A Suite for the Villa Serbelloni,”
328–29; “In the Melzi Gardens,”
329; La Plata Cantata, 317–18,
320, 322–23; “La Plata Cantata,”
321; “Memories of Oceanside,”
321; “Night Letter to the Secretary
of the Interior,” 321; “On Hearing
the News That Hitler Was Dead,”
325; “The Palace Café,” 321–22;
“Paraglyphs,” 320–21; Paris, 317;
“The Pastor’s Farewell,” 322; The
Sawdust War, 323, 328, 330; “The
Sawdust War,” 323–24; “Soliloquy
in My Forty–seventh Year,” 326–
28; “Threads,” 321; “Touching the
Rattlesnake,” 320; “Trying to Read
the Glyphs,” 320; “Villa Serbelloni
Revisited 2003,” 330; Visiting
Picasso, 317, 330
Barthes, Roland, work, “The Death of
the Author,” 25
beat poets, 312–14, 316–17
Bellow, Saul, 122–23, 128, 133
Bennett, Joseph, comments by, on
Lowell, 52
Berg, Stephen, works
Naked Poetry, 14–15, 20–21, 40
New Naked Poetry, 20, 27, 240, 267
Berkeley, George, 145
Berryman, John, x, 2–4, 7, 13, 27, 29
and absurdity, 116
aesthetic(s) of, 112, 116
comments by, on Whitman, 111–12,
114–15, 139, 229, 345
and confessional mode, 100–2
and death, 120–27
and Eliot, 112–13, 135
and irony, 116, 125–27, 132
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 366 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
366
Berryman, John, continued
and Lowell, 130, 135
and mental illness, 114, 119
and self-effacing mode, 244–45
suicide: of father, 122–23, 328; of self,
108, 117, 123, 328
works: “The Ball Poem,” 99–102, 108,
110–11; Delusions Etc., 117; The
Dispossessed, 100–1, 244; “The
Dispossessed,” 244; The Dream
Songs, 3, 13, 103, 112–17, 120–21,
125, 130–31, 133–34, 197; “Dream
Song 121,” 125–26, 132; “Dream
Song 146,” 120–22, 127; “Dream
Song 147,” 127–30; “Dream Song
149,” 119, 129–30; “Dream Song
151,” 131–32; “Dream Song 153,”
128; “Dream Song 157,” 120, 132;
“Dream Song 235,” 124; Henry’s
Fate & Other Poems, 1967–1972,
112, 117; His Toy, His Dream, His
Rest, 115, 117, 120; Homage to
Mistress Bradstreet, 13, 108–14;
“The Imaginary Jew,” 105–6; Love
& Fame, 117; “One Answer to a
Question: Changes,” 110; “A Peine
Ma Piste,” 135; Recovery, 106–8,
117; “‘Song of Myself ’: Intention
and Substance,” 111–12
Bible, 158, 207, 212–13, 218, 306, 332–
38
Bidart, Frank, work, “Introduction” to
Lowell’s Collected Poems, 30
Bishop, Elizabeth, comments by, on
Lowell, ix–x
Blackmur, R. P., 3, 6, 16, 118–19, 128
work, “The Language of Silence,” 3
Bloom, Harold, x, 25, 28, 183, 197, 234
comments by: on Stevens, 183, 196;
on Strand, 186, 191, 196
works: “Dark and Radiant
Peripheries: Mark Strand and A.
R. Ammons,” 196; A Map of
Misreading, 25; The Western
Canon, x
Bly, Robert, ix, 13, 15, 28–29, 274–75,
341–43
aesthetic(s) of, ix, 247–49, 251, 255;
deep image, 249, 252–53; poem of
“two-fold consciousness,” 269–73;
prose poetry, 265–66, 340
archetypes in poetry of, x, 177, 249,
255–56, 263, 265, 273
and collective (theogonic)
unconscious, x, 221–22, 248, 251,
255
and irony, 259
and shamanism, 249, 253, 270
and surrealism, 248, 250, 255
works: “The Dead Seal Near
McClure’s Beach,” 266–69;
“Depression,” 263; “Driving to
Town Late to Mail a Letter,” 257,
259–60, 262–63, 265, 268–69;
“Driving Toward the Lac Qui Parle
River,” 256–259; Eating the Honey
of Words: New and Selected Poems,
275; “Eleven O’Clock at Night,”
340; The Fifties, 14, 59; “Five
Decades of Modern American
Poetry,” 14; “For My Son Noah,
Ten Years Old,” 339, 341; For the
Stomach, 257; “I Came Out of the
Mother Naked,” 259; “In a Train,”
261–62; “In Rainy September,”
340–41; Iron John, 248; “A Late
Spring Day in My Life,” 261;
“Looking for Dragon Smoke,”
258–59; “Love Poem,” 261–62;
Loving a Woman in Two Worlds,
340–41; The Man in the Black Coat
Turns, 248, 263, 339–41; My
Sentence Was a Thousand Years of
Joy, 275, 341; News of the Universe,
249; Silence in the Snowy Fields, 14,
249, 253, 256, 263, 272, 339, 341–
42; “Six Winter Privacy Poems,”
270; The Sixties, 256; Sleepers
Joining Hands, 259, 270;
“Snowbanks North of the House,”
263–65, 268; “Solitude Late at
Night in the Woods,” 257, 260;
“Reading in Fall Rain,” 271–72;
“Return to Solitude,” 249, 253–56,
259, 261; This Tree Will Be Here For
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 367 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
Bly, Robert, works, continued
A Thousand Years, 269–73; “Three
Kinds of Pleasures,” 249–53, 255,
258, 261; “Turning Inward at Last,”
221; “The Two Presences,” 269–70;
“Watering the Horse,” 261–62
Borges, Jorge Luis, 191, 200, 232
work, “Borges and I,” 200
Bradstreet, Anne, 109–11
Breslin, James, 7–8
work, From Modern to Contemporary,
7
Breslin, Paul
comments by: on Bly, 221, 255; on
Simic, 221–222
work, “How to Read the New
Contemporary Poem,” 221
Brooks, Cleanth, 7, 15
work, Understanding Poetry, 12
Browne, Michael Dennis, 134
comments by, on Berryman, 117
Byron, George Gordon (baron), 24
C
Catacalos, Rosemary, work, “The
Measure of Light at the Altar on
the Day of the Dead,” 292–93
Chisholm, Scott, interview of, Ignatow,
229, 240
Ciardi, John, 311–12
collective (theogonic) unconscious, x,
213, 221, 248, 251, 255
confessional mode, definition of, 26
Crane, Stephen, 108–9, 111
Crenner, James, comments by, on
Strand, 198, 200
crime, in poetry, 61, 120, 331–32, 335–
37
critical theory, 26, 276
D
Dante, work, Commedia, 321
Davison, Peter, work, The Fading Smile,
30
deconstruction, 25, 219–20
dialectic, in poetry, 220, 225, 130–31
Dickens, Charles, work, Bleak House,
208
Dickey, James, 13
comments by, on Sexton, 90, 92
Dickinson, Emily, work, “I Heard a Fly
Buzz When I Died,” 152–53, 161
Dillon, David, interview of
Hugo, 1
Snodgrass, 27–28
Dodd, Wayne, interview of
Bly, 28
Kinnell, 154, 164–66
Simic, 213–14, 216–18, 221
Strand, 21, 183, 192, 197, 204
Doty, George, 59–62
Drummond de Andrade, Carlos, 205–
7, 210
Dulles, John Foster, 53
E
Eberhart, Richard, 13
comments by: on Berryman, 123,
126; on Lowell, 42
Edwards, Margaret, interview of,
Kinnell, 167–68
Eliot, T. S., 1, 17, 19–20, 34, 37, 62,
141–42
impersonal theory of poetry, 7–10,
19–20, 34, 112, 135, 328
influence of, 7, 9, 17, 34, 37, 62, 113,
135
and New Criticism, 7–8, 10, 17
works: “Ash–Wednesday,” 331, 333,
335; “Hamlet and His Problems,”
10; “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock,” 135, 148–49; “Tradition
and the Individual Talent,” 7–9, 17,
328, 331; The Waste Land, 142,
279, 331; “Yeats,” 10
Elliott, Robert C., 3–4, 6
work, The Literary Persona, 3
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 15, 305, 309,
319
367
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 368 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
368
Espada, Martín, 299, 309
works: Alabanza: New and Selected
Poems 1982–2002, 295; “Author’s
Note,” 295; “Bully,” 297;
“Clemente’s Bullets,” 296–97;
“Federico’s Ghost,” 298; “Nado
Meets Papo,” 298; “Niggerlips,” 297;
Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s
Hands, 295; “Rebellion is the Circle
of a Lover’s Hands (Pellín and
Nina),” 295–96; “Revolutionary
Spanish Lesson,” 297–98
F
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
aesthetic(s) of, 314, 317
allusion in poetry of, 314, 316
and ancestry: Italian (Sicilian), 313–
17; Portuguese, 313, 317
and confessional mode, 312–13, 316–
17
and Ungaretti, Giuseppe, 313
works: Americus, Book I, 313;
“Autobiography,” 313; Beatitude,
313; “Canti Romani,” 316; A Coney
Island of the Mind, 314; European
Poems & Transitions, 316; How to
Paint Sunlight: Lyric Poems &
Others 1997–2000, 313; “I Genitori
Perduti,” 316; “In Goya’s Greatest
Scenes,” 314; Landscapes of Living
& Dying, 315; “The Old Italians
Dying,” 315–16; Pictures of the
Gone World, 314; These Are My
Rivers: New & Selected Poems
1955–1993, 313, 317; “True
Confessional,” 313
The Fifties, 14, 59
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 112
Fitz Gerald, Gregory, interview of,
Kinnell, 163–65
Fortunato, Mary Jane, interview of,
Kinnell, 162
Foucault, Michel, 220
Frost, Robert, 26, 44, 123, 310–11
death of, 123
G
Garrett, George, works
The Collected Poems of George
Garrett, 277
“Out on the Circuit,” 277–78, 330
George, Diana Hume, 5, 89
comments by, on Sexton, 5
work, Oedipus Anne, 5
Ginsberg, Allen, 12–13, 22, 27, 37
work, Howl, 6, 314
Gonne, Maud, 138
González, Ray, 278, 302
comments by, 287, 291, 293–94
and confessional mode, 286–89, 291,
294
interview of, Simic, 352
and poetic models: Bly, 286, 289;
Kinnell, 286, 289; Wright, 286, 290
works: “The Active Poet,” 287; After
Aztlan: Latino Poets of the Nineties,
291, 293–95; “Begin,” 289; “City of
Weeping Stones,” 290; “Cortez the
Killer,” 290; Crossing the River,
286–87; “Desert or Dream,” 286–
87; “Final Uncovering,” 290–91;
“For the Three Year Old Girl
Sitting on the Corner of 31st and
Wyandot,” 290; The Hawk Temple
at Tierra Grande, 286; Human
Crying Daisies, 286; “Preface,” 287;
Religion of Hands, 286; “The
Spirals of Dawn,” 290; “The
Sustenance,” 293; “Testament,”
289–90; Tracks in the Snow, 286–
87; Twilights and Chants, 286, 288,
290–91; “What are we Talking
About?,” 288–89
Graziano, Frank
and Eliot, 331–35, 337–38
interview of, Strand, 186–87, 189,
208
work, In Memory of Michael Morgan,
330–38
Gregerson, Linda, comments by, on
Strand, 189–91
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 369 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
H
Haffenden, John
comments by, on Berryman, 101–2,
112, 117, 119–20, 122–24, 126
work, The Life of John Berryman, 103
Hall, Donald, 7
Hallberg, Robert von, and Vine,
Richard, interview of, Strand, 17,
19, 192
Hamilton, Ian, 33, 37, 50–51, 54
comments by, on Lowell, 38, 44
interview of, Lowell, 37, 39
work, Robert Lowell, 30
Harjo, Joy, 309, 317
and confessional mode, 301–4
and Native American ancestry, 301
and self-effacing mode, 303
works: How We Became Human: New
and Selected Poems 1975–2001,
302; In Mad Love and War, 302;
Pueblo Imagination, 302; Secrets
from the Center of the World, 302;
She Had Some Horses, 301–2
Hass, Robert, comments by
on Lowell, 37
on Wright, 72–73
Hemingway, Ernest
on death, 265
suicide of, 124
Henricksen, Bruce, interview of,
Wright, 74
Heraclitus, 326
Herbert, George, 192
Heyen, William, 16, 341–42
interview of: Kinnell, 163–65;
Sexton, 84–85, 87; Wright, 58
works: American Poets in 1976, 16;
Evening Dawning, 341
Holden, Jonathan, work, Leverage, 278
Homer, 9, 113, 308, 331
Hongo, Garrett, 278
works: “And Your Soul Shall Dance,”
286; “C & H Sugar Strike, Kahuku,
1923,” 286; “Cruising 99,” 282–83,
285; “The Hongo Store 29 Miles
Volcano Hilo, Hawaii,” 285–86;
“Kubota,” 286; “On the Road to
Paradise,” 283; “Postcards for Bert
Meyers,” 283–84; The River of
Heaven, 281; “Roots,” 284–85; “A
Samba for Inada,” 282;
“Something Whispered in the
Shakuhachi,” 286; “Stepchild,” 285;
Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai’i, 282;
“Who Among You Knows the
Essence of Garlic?,” 284; Yellow
Light, 281–82; “Yellow Light,” 282
Howard, Richard
comments by, on Strand, 188, 191–92
work, Alone With America, 191
Hudgins, Andrew, comments by, on
Berryman, 130–31
Hugo, Richard, 4, 6, 9, 342, 346–47
comments by, 1, 23, 180–81
works: “Statements of Faith,” 180;
“Stray Thoughts on Roethke and
Teaching,” 23
I
Ignatow, David, 4, 18–19, 27–29, 182,
228, 244–45, 330–31, 353
and absurdity, 238, 243–44, 353
archetypes in poetry of, 234
comments by, on Koch, 239
and irony, 242
and Strand, 228, 340–32, 234–35,
238, 240, 243
and surrealism, 228, 238
works: “Brightness as a Poignant
Light,” 234–36; “A Dialogue at
Compas,” 18, 237–39, 241; “The
Dream,” 241–42; “Examine me, I
am continuous,” 236; Figures of the
Human, 239; I Have a Name, 353;
Leaving the Door Open, 243, 353;
Living Is What I Wanted: Last
Poems, 353; Notebooks, 27, 230–31,
233, 240–41; Say Pardon, 241; Six
Decades: Selected Poems, 353; “The
Song,” 239; Tread the Dark, 234–
35; “The Two Selves,” 237, 241;
“With the Sun’s Fire,” 236
369
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 370 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
370
irony, 4, 7–8, 11–12, 300, 304, 308, 311,
337
J
Jackson, Richard
comments by, on Simic, 219, 224
interview of: Ignatow, 241; Simic,
181, 215–16, 218–21, 224, 228;
Strand, 203–4
work, “The Presence of Absence,”
219, 224
Jaidka, Manju, comments by, on
Sexton, 91
James, William, 52
Jarrell, Randall, 13, 126–28, 132, 327
death of, 123, 125–26
work, “The Death of the Ball Turret
Gunner,” 310
Joyce, James, 331, 337
Jung, Carl, x, 213, 221, 248, 251, 255
Justice, Donald, 191
comments by: on Berryman, 134; on
Kees, 136–37, 140, 143
K
Kafka, Franz, 170
Kalstone, David, work, Becoming a
Poet, 30
Keats, John, 1
Kees, Weldon, 4, 27, 29
allusion in poetry of, 143–44, 150
and absurdity, 139, 144
and Berryman, 143–44, 152
and Eliot, 135, 141–42, 144, 148–49
and irony, 144
and Lowell, 138, 140
and solipsism, 144–46
and suicide, 142, 144
works: “Aspects of Robinson,” 142,
147–50; The Fall of the Magicians,
142; “For My Daughter,” 136–40;
“How to Be Happy: Installment
1053,” 139; The Last Man, 136;
“The Lives,” 135; Poems 1947–
1954, 135, 142; “Relating to
Robinson,” 142, 144, 150–51;
“Robinson,” 142, 145–46, 149, 152;
“Robinson at Home,” 142, 149–50,
152; “The Speakers,” 140–43
and Yeats, 137–39
Kermode, Frank, comments by, on
Lowell, 41–42
Kerouac, Jack, work, On the Road, 13
Kessler, Jascha, comments by, on
Berryman, 115
Kevles, Barbara, interview of, Sexton
(Paris Review), 78–79, 87–89, 98
Kinnell, Fergus, 154–55, 158–60, 162,
166, 176, 343–44
Kinnell, Galway, 4, 7, 28, 286, 289
aesthetic(s) of, 104
and Berryman, 161, 163–64, 177
and Rilke, 154–55, 167
works: “After Making Love We Hear
Footsteps,” 343–44; “The Bear,”
165, 171–77, 286, 343; Body Rags,
162, 164–65, 176, 343; The Book of
Nightmares, 154, 156, 158, 161–62,
166, 176, 217, 343; “Freedom, New
Hampshire,” 153; Imperfect Thirst,
343; “Last Holy Fragrance,” 346–
47; “Lastness,” 158–59; “Lost
Loves,” 162–66; Mortal Acts,
Mortal Words, 343; A New Selected
Poems, 343; “Night in the Forest,”
164–66; “The Old Life,” 345–46;
“On the Oregon Coast,” 346–47;
The Past, 343–44, 348; “The Past,”
347–48; “The Poetics of the
Physical World,” 152–54, 161; “The
Porcupine,” 165–71, 343; “The
Road Between Here and There,”
344–45; “The Shoes of
Wandering,” 157–58; “Under the
Maude Moon,” 155; Walking Down
the Stairs, 156; What a Kingdom It
Was, 153; When One has Lived a
Long Time Alone, 343
Kinnell, Maud, 154, 158
Koch, Kenneth, 28, 239
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 371 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
Komunyakaa, Yusef, x, 309
and African ancestry, x, 305
and confessional mode, 305, 308
works: “Camouflaging the Chimera,”
306–7; Copacetic, 305; Dien Cai
Dau, 305–6, 308–9; “The Edge,”
308; “Facing It,” 308; I Apologize for
the Eyes in My Head, 305; “Jungle
Surrender,” 308; Lost in the Bone–
Wheel Factory, 305; “Night Muse &
Mortar Round,” 307–8; “Seeing in
the Dark,” 308; Taboo, 305
Kostelanetz, Richard, interview of,
Berryman, 103, 110, 113, 116–17
Kumin, Maxine, 91
Kunitz, Stanley, 5, 13
L
LANGUAGE poetry, ix, 275
Larkin, Philip, comments by, on Lowell,
42
Leopardi, Giacomo, 208–10, 338
work, “La Sera Del Di’ Di Festa,”
209–10
Libera, Sharon, comments by
on Berryman, 144
on Kees, 144
Lowell, Robert, ix–x, 4, 17, 20, 27, 29,
190, 229, 276, 301, 311–13, 330,
338
aesthetic(s) of, ix–x, 31–32, 34, 37–
38, 41, 43–45, 48–49, 55, 58
allusion in poetry of, 37, 53, 55
and autobiography, 38–39, 42, 51
comments by: on Berryman, 115–16;
on Ciardi, 311; on Whitman, 45
compared to: Barnes, 327–28; Bly,
257–58; Hongo, 284, 86; Kees, 138,
140; Sexton, 79–80, 86–88, 91–94,
98; Simic, 227, Stefanile, 309;
Strand, 99, 183, 205; Weigl, 279;
Wright, 49, 58–59, 61–65, 67, 70–
72, 75
as conscientious objector, 50–51
death of, 30, 39
371
education: Brimmer School, 51–53;
St. Mark’s, 52–53
institutionalization of: McLean
Mental Hospital, 46–48, 55;
Payne–Whitney Clinic, 51–52;
West Street Jail, 49, 51, 53, 55
and irony, 39, 44, 53
and mental illness (manic
depression), 30, 38, 51, 246
and meter, 39–42, 44, 91
and persona mode, 177–78
and prose, 31–32, 38–40, 42–43, 47,
51, 55
and self-effacing mode, 245–47
works: “91 Revere Street,” 39, 51–53;
“After Enjoying Six or Seven Essays
on Me,” 39–40, 44–45; “Beyond
the Alps,” 31; “Caligula,” 177–78;
Collected Poems, 30; “Commander
Lowell,” 42–44; “Dunbarton,” 34–
37, 44, 48, 99; For the Union Dead,
39–40, 45–46, 55, 177, 328;
History, 178; “Home After Three
Months Away,” 52, 54; Imitations,
205; “Inauguration Day: January
1953,” 31; “In Memory of Arthur
Winslow,” 34; “July in
Washington,” 45, 55, 57–58; The
Letters of Robert Lowell, 30; Life
Studies, 5–6, 11, 13–14, 25, 31–34,
36–46, 51, 53–54, 70, 87, 192, 245,
281, 286, 309; “Life Studies,” 3, 41–
42, 45, 70, 92, 343, 348; Lord
Weary’s Castle, 33–35, 37; “A Mad
Negro Soldier Confined at
Munich,” 31; “Man and Wife,”
245–47; “Mary Winslow,” 34;
“Memories of West Street and
Lepke,” 46, 49–54, 58, 190, 246,
269; “Middle Age,” 45–46; “The
Mouth of the Hudson,” 45, 55–56,
58, 64, 183, 258; “My Last
Afternoon with Uncle Devereux
Winslow,” 31; Notebook, 39–40;
“The Nihilist as Hero,” 178; “The
Old Flame,” 45; “Skunk Hour,” 43–
44, 54; “‘To Speak of Woe That Is
in Marriage’,” 245–47; “Waking in
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 372 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
372
Lowell, Robert, works, continued
the Blue,” 46–49, 51, 54–55, 58, 62,
71, 80, 91, 93–94, 227; “Water,” 45;
“Winter in Dunbarton,” 34–37, 44
M
MacLeish, Archibald, 62
Maio, Samuel, work, English translation
of Leopardi’s “La Sera Del Di’ Di
Festa,” 209–10
Mariani, Paul, works
Dream Song: The Life of John
Berryman, 103
Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell,
30
Marmon, Lee, 302
Martin, Jay, comments by, on Lowell,
32–34, 37–38
Martínez, Dionisio D.
and confessional mode, 299, 301
and persona mode, 299
works: “Ash Wednesday,” 301; “Chez
Mondrian, Paris, 1926,” 301;
Climbing Back, 299; “Folklore,”
301; History as a Second Language,
299, 301; “History as a Second
Language,” 299–300
Martz, William, comments by, on
Berryman, 110–11
Mazzaro, Jerome, 6
interview of, Wright, 58
Meredith, William, 123
Merrill, James, 27–28, 275, 277
Merwin, W. S., 28, 275
meter, 9, 21, 33, 58, 91–92, 95, 276, 311,
321–22, 325
and open poetic form, 7, 14
and subject matter, 21, 39–42, 44,
275–76, 354
Meyers, Jeffrey, works
Manic Power: Robert Lowell and his
Circle, 30
Robert Lowell: Interviews and
Memories, 30
Mezey, Robert, works
Naked Poetry, 14–15, 20–21, 40
New Naked Poetry, 20, 27, 240, 267
Middlebrook, Diane Wood, work, Anne
Sexton: A Biography, 78, 91
Mills, Ralph J., Jr., 8, 14
comments by, 8, 13: on Ignatow, 182,
233, 240
works: Cry of the Human, 7–8, 13;
“Earth Hard,” 240
Milton, John, 66
work, Paradise Lost, 55
Molesworth, Charles, comments by
on Berryman, 116
on Bly, 256
Munford, Howard, comments by, on
Berryman, 133
N
Nathan, Leonard, 23
comments by, on Wright, 71, 73–74
work, “The Private ‘I’ in
Contemporary Poetry,” 23, 71, 73–
74
New Criticism, 6–11, 13–15, 17, 19, 21,
26, 33, 37
influence of, 7–8, 12, 276
and poetic form, 7–8, 11, 20
New Formalism, ix, 275
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 66
Nist, John, English translation of
Drummond’s In the Middle of the
Road, 205
O
Ostriker, Alicia, 86–87
P
Packard, William, interview of, Sexton,
5, 92
Paz, Octavio, comments by, on Strand,
193, 198
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 373 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
Pérez–Bustillo, Camilo, Spanish
translation of Espada’s Rebellion Is
the Circle of a Lover’s Hands, 295
persona mode, definition of, 26
Phillips, Robert, 5–6, 14, 21, 27, 31
Plath, Sylvia, 12, 21, 86, 124, 128
work, Ariel, 14
Plumly, Stanley
comments by, on Strand, 192
interview of: Kinnell, 154, 164–66;
Rich, 16; Simic, 213–14, 216–18,
221; Strand, 21, 183, 192, 197, 204
Poe, Edgar Allan, work, The Narrative
of Arthur Gordon Pym, 227
poet, separation from speaker (voice)
of poem, 1–2, 4
Porterfield, Jo R., comments by, on
Berryman, 115
Poulin, A., Jr., interview of
Kinnell, 161, 217
Sexton, 84–85, 87
Pound, Ezra, 2–3, 7–8, 15, 20, 40, 314,
331, 339
and Imagist poetry, 11, 252
and objectivist theory, 251–52
works: “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,”
251; “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” 26;
Personae, 2, 6; “Vortex,” 2
R
Ransom, John Crowe, 7, 15, 33–34, 37,
62
Rexroth, Kenneth, comments by, on
Kees, 137, 143–44, 148
Rich, Adrienne, 16–17, 19, 185
work,“When We Dead Awaken:
Writing as Re-Vision,” 16
Richards, I. A., 78–79
work, Practical Criticism, 193
Ricks, Christopher, comments by, on
Berryman, 115
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 133, 154–55, 167
work, “The Song of the Blind Man,”
133
Rimbaud, Arthur, 87
Rivière, Pierre, 332–35, 337–38
work, I, Pierre Rivière, 332, 337
Robinson Crusoe, 143–44, 150
Roethke, Beatrice, 123
Roethke, Theodore, 13, 15, 23, 128,
213–14, 327
death of, 123, 128, 132
works: The Lost Son, 13, 214; Praise to
the End!, 214
romanticism, 23–24
and personal poetry, 23, 133
Rosenthal, M. L., 5–6, 27, 32, 139
comments by, on Lowell, 5, 32, 42,
343, 348
Ross, Ralph, 123, 132
Ross, William, comments by, on Kees,
139–40, 143–45
S
Schwartz, Delmore, 104–5, 118, 127,
130, 327
death of, 119–21, 128–29, 131–33
and mental illness, 119, 129
Seidel, Frederick, interview of, Lowell,
7, 32, 37, 39–42, 45, 87
self-effacing mode, definition of, 27
Serchuk, Peter, comments by, on
Wright, 62
Sexton, Anne, 4–6, 27, 31, 49, 185, 273
aesthetic(s) of, 82, 87, 92, 94, 97
allusion in poetry of, 96
and Lowell, 79–80, 86–88, 91–94, 98
and mental illness, 78, 85, 91, 94, 96
and psychotherapy, 78, 93
and Snodgrass, 81–84, 86
and suicide attempts, 78, 83, 88, 91
works: All My Pretty Ones, 90; Anne
Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters,
78, 80; To Bedlam and Part Way
Back, 84, 90, 92, 95; Complete
Poems, 91; “The Double Image,”
81–86, 88; Live or Die, 91; “Said the
Poet to the Analyst,” 5, 95–98;
373
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 374 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
374
Sexton, Anne, continued
Transformations, 86; “Unknown
Girl in the Maternity Ward,” 84–
86, 88; “You, Doctor Martin,” 5,
91–95
Sexton, Linda Gray, 80
work, Searching for Mercy Street, 78
Shakespeare, William, 9, 24, 66, 128,
135, 331
work, Hamlet, 55
Shapiro, Karl, 13
work, The Bourgeois Poet, 13
Simic, Charles, 29, 181–82, 228–29,
233–37, 243, 330–31, 352–53
and absurdity, 212–13, 228, 352
aesthetic(s) of, 352
allusion in poetry of, 214, 223, 227
archetypes in poetry of, 211, 213–19,
221–22, 226, 228
and collective (theogonic)
unconscious, 213, 221
and solipsism, 215, 221
and Strand, 215, 218, 222, 353
and surrealism, 181–82
in Yugoslavia, 29, 215
works: Another Republic, 205, 211–
12; Austerities, 212, 352; “Ax,” 225–
27; “Bestiary for the Fingers of My
Right Hand,” 226–27; The Book of
Gods and Devils, 352; “Charles
Simic,” 225; Charon’s Cosmology,
220, 222–23; A Childhood Story,
352; “Description,” 223–24;
Dismantling the Silence, 215–16,
225; “Eraser,” 220; “Fork,” 216;
“History,” 212–13, 218, 222;
“Knife,” 216, 221; “Madonnas
Touched up with a Goatee,” 352–
53; “My Noiseless Entourage,” 352;
“My Shoes,” 216; Nine Poems: A
Childhood Story, 352; “Poem,” 215;
“The Point,” 228; “Position
Without a Magnitude,” 222–23;
“The Prisoner,” 222–23; “A Quiet
Talk with Oneself,” 227; Return to
a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, 225;
Selected Poems, 352; “Stone,” 216–
18; “The Spoon,” 216; “Table,” 216;
Unending Blues, 352; The Voice at 3
a.m., 352; The World Does Not End,
352
Simpson, Eileen, 104, 118
comments by, on Berryman, 104–6,
108–9, 111, 118–19, 128–30, 133
Simpson, Louis, 8–9, 11, 16, 21, 354
comments by: on Berryman, 112–13;
on Lowell, 53; on Sexton, 87, 90–91
on confessional (personal) poetic
voice, 22, 112–13, 277
work, A Revolution in Taste, 11–12,
17, 22, 27, 47, 53, 112
Smith, Dave, 25, 32, 74–75
comments by, on Wright, 26, 32
interview of, Wright, 66
work, The Pure Clear Word, 25
Snodgrass, W. D., 11–12, 14, 28, 81–84,
86
works: Heart’s Needle, 11, 14;
“Heart’s Needle,” 81–82, 84; “A
Poem’s Becoming,” 11–12
Snyder, Gary, 249
solipsism, 303
Sontag, Susan, 22–23
Stafford, Jean, 246
Stefanile, Felix, 309, 312, 323
and confessional mode, 309
works: “The Bocce Court on Lewis
Avenue,” 312; The Country of
Absence: Poems and an Essay, 309;
The Dance at St. Gabriel’s, 309,
312; “The Dance at St. Gabriel’s,”
310; “Some Mentors,” 311
Stevens, Wallace, 8, 15, 183, 196, 232
works: The Collected Poems of Wallace
Stevens, 183; “Le Monocle de Mon
Oncle,” 183; “The Man with the
Blue Guitar,” 186, 190; “The Paltry
Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage,”
183; “Peter Quince at the Clavier,”
183; “The Snow Man,” 203
Stitt, Peter
comments by: on Strand, 191; on
Wright, 70
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 375 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
INDEX
Stitt, Peter, continued
interview of: Berryman, 106–7, 113–
14, 134; Wright, 63, 66, 69–70, 76
works: “James Wright: The Quest
Motif in The Branch Will Not
Break,” 70; “Stages of Reality,” 191
Strand, Mark, 15–17, 19–21, 28–29,
180–82, 303, 330–31
and absurdity, 179, 181–83, 192–94,
198, 200, 202–3, 207, 210, 230, 352
aesthetic(s) of, 17, 185, 188–89, 203
comments by, 15, 276: on Justice,
204; on Rich, 19, 185
and confessional mode, 99–100, 348–
50
and Eliot, 351
and persona mode, 177–79
and solipsism, 189, 191, 215
and Stevens, 183–84, 186, 188, 190,
196, 203, 350
and surrealism, 21, 179, 181, 197–98,
200, 203
works: Another Republic, 205, 211–
12; “Black Maps,” 198–99; Blizzard
of One, 350; The Continuous Life,
350; The Contemporary American
Poets, 14–15, 21, 276; Dark Harbor,
350; Darker, 188, 190–92, 195–96,
198–99, 234; “The Dirty Hand,”
205–7, 210; “Donald Justice,” 204;
“Eating Poetry,” 178–79; “Elegy for
My Father,” 188; “Giving Myself
Up,” 188–90, 193; “The Guardian,”
193, 195–97; “For Jessica, My
Daughter,” 210; “Keeping Things
Whole,” 185–86, 189, 193, 204,
230; The Late Hour, 208, 210, 348;
“Leopardi,” 208–10, 331, 338; “The
Man in the Mirror,” 201–2, 204;
The Monument, 186–87, 189–90,
205; “My Death,” 199–200; “My
Life,” 199–200; “My Life By
Somebody Else,” 199–202, 204;
“My Mother on an Evening in Late
Summer,” 350; “Notes on the Craft
of Poetry,” 20–21; “The One Song,”
199; “The Poem,” 350–52; “Poem
after Leopardi,” 208; “Pot Roast,”
348–50; “A Reason for Moving,”
185; Reasons for Moving, 17, 178,
185, 191–92, 200, 202, 205, 232;
“The Remains,” 190, 193, 196–97,
240; The Sargeantville Notebook,
183–84; Selected Poems, 99, 193,
208, 210, 348, 350; “Seven Poems,”
198; “Shooting Whales,” 99–100,
348; Sleeping with One Eye Open,
191, 194, 196, 200–1; “Sleeping
with One Eye Open,” 193–94, 203,
351; “A Statement about Writing,”
184; The Story of Our Lives, 188;
“The Tunnel,” 196–97, 200, 203;
“Violent Storm,” 194–95; “When
the Vacation Is Over for Good,”
194; “The Whole Story,” 200–2,
204–5
and Yeats, 210
Strom, Stephen, work, Secrets from the
Center of the World, 302
surrealism, 211, 287, 306–7, 314
T
Tate, Allen, 7, 15, 33–34, 38
comments by, on Lowell, 33–34
Thomas, Dylan, 22, 94, 128
Trilling, Lionel, 2–5, 28, 30, 82, 98,
190–91
U
Unger, Leonard, work, T. S. Eliot: A
Selected Critique, 135
V
Valéry, Paul, 1, 23
Vendler, Helen
comments by: on Berryman, 121–22;
on Lowell, 25
work, Part of Nature, Part of Us, 121
Vine, Richard and von Hallberg,
Robert, interview of, Strand, 17,
19, 192
375
2005_Maio_creating.book Page 376 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 2:57 PM
W
Warren, Robert Penn, 7, 15, 331, 335
comments by, 22–23: on Berryman,
123, 125–26
works: Democracy and Poetry, 22;
Understanding Poetry, 12
Washington, D. C., in poetry, 45, 55,
57–58, 119, 129–30
Weigl, Bruce, 278, 305
comments by, 278
and confessional mode, 279–81
works: “1955,” 280; Circle of Hanh: A
Memoir, 279; “Girl at the Chu Lai
Laundry,” 279–80; The Monkey
Wars, 280; Song of Napalm, 279;
“Song of Napalm,” 280–81; Sweet
Lorain, 279; The Unraveling
Strangeness, 279; What Saves Us,
279
Whitman, Walt, 11–12, 15, 20, 140,
161–64, 196, 229–30, 232, 237,
239–40
and persona, 18
and personal poetry, 45
and poetic voice, 11, 19, 62, 111–12,
114–15, 139, 161–64, 171, 177,
229–231, 345–46
work, “Song of Myself,” 114, 161, 171
Wilbur, Richard, 119
Williams, William Carlos, 11, 15, 33,
37, 44
Williamson, Alan, 1–2, 24–25
Wilson, Edmund, 25
work, Axel’s Castle, 23–24
Wordsworth, William, 23–24, 164, 309
work, The Prelude, 45, 52–53, 164
Wright, Annie, 74
Wright, James, ix, 4, 7, 25–26, 29, 31,
276, 281, 338, 343, 346–47
aesthetic(s) of, ix, 78, 257
and Bly, 59, 63, 69, 74, 249, 253, 256,
258–60, 269, 273
and Eliot, 62
and irony, 58, 60–62, 78
and Lowell, 49, 58–59, 61–65, 67, 70–
72, 75
works: “At the Executed Murderer’s
Grave,” 59–60, 62–63, 69, 269;
“Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry,
Ohio,” 64–66, 69; “A Blessing,” 67–
69, 73–74, 249, 258; The Branch
Will Not Break, 58, 64, 66–67, 69–
70; Collected Poems, 75; “Depressed
by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk
Toward an Unused Pasture and
Invite the Insects to Join Me,” 67–
68, 249; “From a Letter,” 63, 77;
“Gambling in Stateline, Nevada,”
70–72, 74; The Green Wall, 58;
“Hook,” 76–78, 253; “The Idea of
the Good,” 70, 75–76, 78, 340–41;
“Lifting Illegal Nets by Flashlight,”
70, 73–74, 78; “Lying in a
Hammock at William Duffy’s
Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota,”
64–67, 69, 78, 256, 259; “Outside
Fargo, North Dakota,” 70, 72–74;
Saint Judas, 58–59, 64; “Saint
Judas,” 64; Shall We Gather at the
River, 58, 70, 75–76; To a
Blossoming Pear Tree, 76; “To the
Muse,” 70, 75
Y
Yeats, Anne Butler, 138
Yeats, William Butler, 1, 10–11, 23, 113,
137–38, 331
allusion in poetry of, 138
comments by, 137
works: Michael Robartes and the
Dancer, 138; “A Prayer for My
Daughter,” 138, 210; “The Second
Coming,” 137–38; A Vision, 137
Young, David, comments by, on
Kinnell, 153
Z
zeitgeist, 112
Ziegler, Alan, interview of, Ignatow, 241